


Foam's Daughter

by Gryphoness



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 22:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9627617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryphoness/pseuds/Gryphoness





	

She was the oldest of them all. She existed many years before even mighty Zeus himself was born. She came into being in a blink. One moment, she did not exist, and the next, she did. She was born a woman grown, long hair cloaking her body, though she had no others to observe her and no concept of modesty. She arose from the sea that had borne her, carried ashore by its friendly, coaxing waves. She wandered. She could not say how long, for she had no understanding of time, or how far, as distance was also an unknown to her.

She had no name, nothing by which to label herself, but she knew what she was. She was womanly beauty, she was desire, she was lust embodied. This was her essence and her duty. She roamed the earth, attending to those matters in which she felt she was needed. And eventually, someone took notice of her. She was brought before a man, seated upon a great throne, black-bearded, and with a voice that made her feel suddenly small, though she had never known such a feeling before. She told her story as she knew it, inky hair pulled about to shield herself from his pale, stern eyes. When he heard the story of her birth, he laughed, a booming sound that make her itch within her own skin.

  
He called her enchanting, captivating, marvelous. He named her Aphrodite, _foam-born_ , and so Aphrodite she was. She learns the stories of those around her, their names and their deeds. She was eldest of them all, born even before the dreaded Kronos crowned himself. She was the daughter of Ouranos, the blood and flesh and seed of the first immortal king.  
But she could not point out such things. Zeus, the grandson of her father (her nephew?) is king now, and determined that none shall ever doubt or succeed him. So when he wraps her in golden cloth and calls her _daughter_ , she bows her head and calls him _Majesty_.

  
Mortals claim her to be vain, fickle, treacherous. She is given as a prize, bound to the crippled and despised son of a goddess who hates her for her beauty and desirability, though Aphrodite asked for none of it.  
She loves him, despite what others claim. Her husband is solemn and sullen and ugly, yet she loves him all the same. Love makes no sense, she of all creatures should know that. She loves his intense, single-minded focus, she loves the intelligence he tries to hide. The others call him rough, unseemly, a brute, and he acts as they expect; why do they deserve to see any part of him that he doesn’t wish them to?

But his calloused hands were gentle when they touched her, and his smiles were warm and bright as his volcano forge. He loved her, though he didn’t say it in words. He said it in the way he made things for her, jewels and brushes and silly trinkets just to make her laugh. He said it in the way he defended her when their family called her shallow, waspish, cruel. He said it in the way he let her soothe his mangled legs when they ached, though he had been wary of touch since his horrid mother flung him, newborn, off Olympus.

  
Love was not meant to be constrained, no matter what Hera sniffed when she was feeling sanctimonious (which was, if Aphrodite was being truthful, always). Love was love was love, and she could not be blamed for obeying its whims. So when she finds herself in the arms of her husband’s brother, she feels no shame. Hephaestus understands the nature of her designation, and holds nothing against her for doing as her essence demands she do. She bears four children by her brother-in-law, and her dear, patient husband treats them just as he would his own.

  
The twins, loud and heedless boys that are quite obviously aspects of war, Ares cloisters away for himself. Phobos and Deimos, he calls them, Fear and Terror, and part of her wonders how she could be any part of them. Ares could have borne them on his own, as Hera did Hephaestus, for all Aphrodite sees herself in her eldest children. The younger two, however, clearly take after her, and her lover shows no interest in them. Those she is allowed to keep with her.

  
Harmonia is sweetness itself, she lights up a room just by entering it. She carries a permanent aura of happiness. Oftentimes, other members of the family will follow her around, content to simply bask in her presence and the joy that lingers like a mist about her.

  
Eros is her special boy, her constant companion, her faithful aid. Where she is the desire, the pull of skin towards skin, her son is the emotion involved, the romance of love. They roam together, hand in hand, doing their conjoined duties. Hephaestus, too, adores her youngest child. He forges the arrows the boy uses, lets Eros sit upon the arm of his chair as his hands shape the gold and lead into shafts and points.

  
Mortals will paint a different image, of the unfaithful, lust-addled wife and the jealous, vindictive husband forced to live with the living proof of her betrayal. But Aphrodite knows the truth of her story, and when you live longer than time is counted, the opinions of those who live and die in an eye’s blink matters very little


End file.
